In
the Baslow registers the name first appears as "Marpple", but after a
few years the second "p" was dropped and the name became Marple. In
Edensor it was always spelt that way, as was the case in Youlgreave. It stayed
as "Marple" in Baslow for the next 150 years or so, until copper
plate handwriting styles started to be used. This script is quite unlike Old
English, and is characterized by inclining slightly to the right and by a
flowing looping style. Users of this script took great pride with their writing
and quite often added graces to the end of the last word of a sentence. These
graces, or curlicues as they are more correctly known, could be quite exotic.

At
this time, most baptism entries would conclude with something like "the
son (or daughter) of Robert & Elizabeth Marple." The word
"Marple", being the last word of the sentence, would be the one
graced with a curlicue. The last 3 letters of the name are quite loopy when
written in copper plate script, and so the curlicue would often be a loop as
well. Originally, this was well above the line of writing, but over a period of
years it gradually descended until the point was reached that it was level with
the letters of the name and looks like an "s" to a casual reader.

Thus
it was that in Baslow everyone was baptised as a
"Marple" prior to 1770, but as a "Marples" after 1820, with
a few people being baptised as one and buried as the
other. Indeed there are a couple of gravestones in Baslow churchyard where a
terminal "s" has been added afterwards to a Marple name.

I
haven't been able to trace any descendants from the Youlgreave or Edensor
families, who bore the Marple name. I suspect that the Edensor families went to
Bonsall (near Matlock, a few miles south of Baslow) where that name continued
unchanged. I also suspect that the Youlgreave families went to Wirksworth where
their first records are also concerned with lead mining families,
The Wirksworth families continue to use the Marple name unchanged to this day.